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The Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) star against the Gujarat Titans (GT) was Rinku Singh, who did the unthinkable in Ahmedabad by snatching victory in the final ball with 29 runs needed in the last over of the match. The diminutive batter hit five consecutive sixes to etch his name in history books. Rinku finished the match with 48 runs off 21 balls, including 30 runs off the final over of the match bowled by Yash Dayal.
The star batter from Aligarh revealed in an exclusive interview with Sports Tak revealed that he has dreams of wearing India's colours like his cricketing idol Suresh Raina. "Like everyone else, I also dream of playing for India, but I am focused on the IPL. Just want to keep performing for KKR and help them win matches. Suresh Raina has been my idol since the start and I follow him. He is a very good fielder and he also used to bat lower down the order as I do," Rinku Singh told India Today Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai in an exclusive interview.
Rinku finished the match with an unbeaten 48 runs off 21 balls, including 30 runs off the final over of the match. It was just the second time that KKR chased down a total of more than 200 runs after Rashid Khan came close to snatching the victory with a hat trick.
The Afghanistan star and stand-in skipper took the wickets of the dangerous duo of Andre Russell and Sunil Narine, and then the wicket of Shardul Thakur, the hero of KKR's last match against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
Coming from a humble background did not stop Rinku from following his dream of making it big in cricket, he told Sports Tak. "My brother used to work in a coaching centre, so he took us there where we were told that we should wipe the floors in the morning. I ran away from there and since then I have focused on cricket," Rinku said.
"My father struggled a lot, I come from a farmer's family. Every ball that I hit out of the ground was dedicated to the people who sacrificed so much for me," he added.
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